Just Opened: Chicago’s Elysian Spa

A few blocks off the garden-filled sidewalks of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile—the Midwest’s super-size version of Fifth Avenue—and around the corner from the skyscraping John Hancock building is the newest addition to the Windy City’s growing collection of boutique hotels: the Elysian. Named after the mythic Elysian Fields where gods and goddesses laid their mortal heroes to rest, the secluded—entry is through an almost-hidden stone-walled archway—188-room hotel is also home to a not-so-boutique-size, 14,000-square-foot spa. Staking claim as the largest space in the Grecian-inspired hotel, this urban oasis shares its dark granite floors with a Pilates and Gyrotonic studio, a state-of-the-art gym, and a petal-pink mosaic-tiled lap pool. The tranquil ladies’ and men’s lounges (hers finished in sparkling white stone with lacquered lockers; his in rich walnut wood) offer a place where weary, over-shopped feet (Barneys New York is a neighbor) can soak in whirlpools and relax in steam and sauna rooms pretreatment. And while the women’s lounge leads to a hallway lined with treatment rooms for herbal body wraps, holistic-based facials, and stress-relieving massages (ask for Elio), the men have their own atelier—complete with flat-screen TVs—for traditional shaves and trims.